Ping guo

I see this movie as a commentary on the new morality in Beijing brought on by modernization. This modernization could not have happened unless there was a mobile work force so the government made a conscious effort to diminish the familial bonds. How else could a worker travel thousands of miles to Beijing or Shenzen to find work? Money had to become of greater importance. The other modernization was that men could only legally marry one woman. In previous times, men would take another wife. In previous times, families would buy children.

With these two changes to Chinese society, this movie could ensue. An Kun and Liu can now be in Beijing. Lin Dong and Wang Mei would be childless. The lust, heartbreak, the anguish, the loathing, all results. The viewer is left with the question whether the new morality is better than the old. I think the writers preferred the old.

What happens to a collectivist, traditional society after it is traumatized by two extreme social experiments within a period of half a century – dehumanizing communism and equally alienating rampant materialism? Perhaps the best film to come out of mainland China in a decade, Yu Li's Ping Guo is both a scathing social commentary on the state of present day China and a moving human drama. The film, as well as its characters, looks like Beijing: Grey, polluted, crowded and confused. Acting is uniformly excellent. Bingbing Fan, the stunning young actress with morning-after eyes, is superb in the title role as the all-too-human Ping Guo. As the story unfolds and the humanity of the other three leads begin to rise above their greed and apathy, Ping finds her inner strength. The ending, which should be predictable, comes as a touching surprise.

Others have commented enough on the story. It is best to walk into this film without knowing too much about it. If you are a frequent visitor to China or an observer of its mind-blowing ascent, the film will have more to say to you. However, both the story and the characters are universal. Even a passing knowledge of that fascinating society is sufficient to enjoy this minor masterpiece, although you might miss its many subtle ironies.

Chinese authorities banned the film from being shown in China. They also banned its producers from working in the industry for two years. The decision, which is almost an unofficial award, won't stop those who want to watch it.

Ping Guo is a gem of a movie! I've been watching a lot of Chinese movies recently, but Ping Guo is one of the best of the bunch.

The story is about two couples intertwined due to unlucky circumstances, but most of them in their hands. During the movie, a very harsh and very real light is shed on the difference between poor and rich in modern Beijing and it will leave your mind thinking about it long after the movie is over. This is a very good thing - in my opinion movies are supposed to make you think, supposed to move you. Ping Guo did just that and is worthy of watching for everyone who isn't afraid of foreign movies and who is willing to look at something else than popcorn Hollywood.

This movie will keep you entertained for nearly two hours and will make you want for more movies of this director. And that's a very good thing!

A lower class, working, married woman gets pregnant with lots of plot twists, money, moral dilemmas and human intrigue. If a travelogue/vocabulary brush up is your motive for watching there are some shots of Beijing looking bleak in winter, Tienamen Square, and the Forbidden City in the background during a conversation. My food-traveler mother wanted to know if there was food. With the key character being a pregnant female, she's eating all the time. If low-grade, sordid, masseuse/hooker scenes are what you seek, quit watching after the early drunken rape by boss scene. Otherwise that cutoff point is where you will quit watching, disgusted, wondering why the film wasn't cataloged as porn, but it is also exactly when the film gets interesting and stays interesting to the end. I started cleaning the kitchen at that point but checked in on the film running in the background just in case it redeemed itself. It did redeem itself, and turned out to be captivating.

China's weird. Didn't we just learn from the Olympic Committee that there's billions of people living there? I think we did. Why then is this one of only a few films I can think of, off the top of my head, coming from there that has any semblance of lived-life-now? Lived life now under peculiar circumstances, sure, because it is a movie after all, but still. Everything else seems to be costumed drama kung fu palace historical Mao-sanctioned fantasy crap. I'm talking mainland China here. Taiwan and Hong Kong don't count. Ang Lee doesn't count. All the Chinese filmmakers making films in other parts of the world, and getting them financed and released in other parts of the world, don't count—and there's the rub.

Lost in Beijing is banned in China and its filmmakers are banned for two years from making films in China. What kind of nonsensical time-out is that? I mean no disrespect to the Chinese, I just want more of them to fall through the cracks and make films like Lost in Beijing—which is nothing like Farewell My Hero's Kingdom of Flying Yellow Flowers.

Fan Bingbing, known in the west as Bingbing Fan, stars in this film as Liu Ping Guo (Ping Guo, the Chinese title, translates literally as "Apple"), a foot massage girl who is raped by her boss (played out-of-this-worldly great by Tony Leung Ka Fai who's been in enough movies that every Chinese citizen could pick a film of his to see without any two people seeing the same film—western audiences may know him as the guy who has sex with Marguerite Duras in The Lover), and the rape is witnessed by her husband, a window washer who just happens to be hanging from a scaffolding washing the windows of the room at the massage parlor where the rape takes place. Foot massage is big business in China so I guess that's why this massage parlor is some kind of skyscraper that needs these scaffolded window washers, but I digress. The husband sees this as an opportunity to milk a little money from the well to do parlor owner. Lost in Beijing turns a critical eye toward the new moneyed urban class set against the rural, immigrant-in-their-own-country, if you will, working class.

Bingbing's husband confronts Tony's wife with the rape news and demands money for his pain and suffering, yes, you read that right, his pain and suffering. Tony's wife laughs at him and suggests a better revenge would be for him to have sex with her, and then in a moment of barely noticed brilliance while she's riding him cowgirl puts sunglasses on him so she can't see him looking at her.

It turns out Bingbing is pregnant and things get a little more complicated. If you complain when a film uses overly convenient plot devices to move forward you probably won't like this film as much as I do. I'm more concerned with the caliber of the characters. All four of the main performances in Lost in Beijing are magnificent. (Tony's relationship with, and handling of, his over sized wallet/day-planner is hilarious, as is his response of randomly checking the top of his head for bald spots when he's busted for trying to use a mirror to peek at Bingbing in the shower.) The direction is good and the camera-work creative, sometimes a little too creative to the point where I got dizzy a couple times so I'm deducting a point for that. Beijing is the backdrop here, captured in all its beautiful gray and desolate self.